PASADENA – There's something wrong geographically and spiritually with Texas being in the Rose Bowl. It's like finding smoked brisket on an old, yellowed menu at Chasen's or Romanov's. The last time a cowboy hat was seen in the Arroyo Seco, Tom Mix was under it.

So it would be easy to say this is yet another upsetting thing the BCS has wrought. That it has turned America's greatest single sporting day, something with a beard longer than Methuselah's, something with charm and West Coast chops, something with history and tradition up to the top of its Tournament floats, into just another New Year's Day football game.

I hate to see the BCS look good, because I can't stand it. Its elitism is horrible for college sports. So we can say Texas doesn't belong in Rose Bowls any more than USC belongs in Orange Bowls. And it would be right. And also wrong.

If Texas can continue playing this way in Rose Bowls, as it did yesterday in the Longhorns' thrilling 38-37 victory over frequent Pasadena visitor Michigan, maybe it can move from the Big 12 to the Pac-10 – which once was rumored a possibility, if I recall.

The eyes of Texas were upon the 91st running of the Granddaddy yesterday, and tens of thousands of orange-clad Texans, wannabe Texans and former Texans, flocked into the venerable structure to watch their Longhorns play in the Rose – and against the Wolverines – for the first time.

And just like that, all the talk that Texas didn't belong, that Longhorns coach Mack Brown begged and called in markers to brethren (those who actually liked him) and thus got past Cal into this flower bed, was put to rest. Done so by a 60-minute classic, a game that had Rose historians scrambling to remember if they had seen a better one.

"I don't think we'll ever answer all the critics in sports," Brown would say. "The BCS should answer these questions, not me. Texas should have been in (a BCS bowl) the last three years. Nobody who knows football should question whether Texas should be here or not."

Now, that would be hard to do.

I've been to 25 Roses and seen many more than that. There was Ron Vander Kelen vs. USC. Pat Haden vs. Ohio State. Charles White vs. Ohio State. Warren Moon vs. Michigan. So many great games, all of them Pac-10 vs. the Big Ten, before the Granddaddy caved and went BCS for the Himalaya of dough that goes with it.

The Rose Bowl can stand alone, but it is what it has become. So, we might as well quit complaining and enjoy it. If you didn't enjoy yesterday, you don't enjoy football.

I can't say I'm particularly fond of either school – I've always liked Michigan's helmets – and the Wolverines have had a history of coming west this time of year and gagging as if they tried to swallow a sequoia.

But they didn't gag yesterday. They played their lungs out. They just weren't good enough. Texas was better going in and better coming out.

A great game, this was. Maybe not a defensive masterpiece, but it was played at a Hitchcockian pace with a Bernard Herrmann score, with great athletes doing derring-do, making a string of big plays that stretched from here to Glendale.

We might have seen its equal here, but I can't say there's been a better one. It ended – as we tend to remember great games – in drama, on a winning, 37-yard field goal by Dusty Mangum as the clock read 0:00.

Michigan, which had built a 31-21 lead into the fourth quarter thanks to the running of Mike Hart and the pass-catch combination of Chad Henne and Braylon Edwards (three touchdown catches for the nation's premier receiver) and the returns of Steve Breaston, looked to have bolted the lock.

But the Wolverine defense couldn't get the door closed on Texas quarterback Vince Young, who isn't the most accurate thrower, but runs with speed, strength and as if he's been hosed down with axle grease.

Velcro is slippery next to this guy. Young, the game's offensive MVP, ran 21 times for 192 yards – most of it of his own improvisation – for four scores (including a 60-yarder) and threw for 180 yards and another touchdown.

His ranks among the greatest Rose Bowl performances, so dominant that Cedric Benson, the Horns' All-America tailback, was reduced to an afterthought. Young ran for 72 fourth-quarter yards, two TDs, and led the final drive that set up the winning field goal.

"If you saw the game, it was obvious he's difficult to tackle," said Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, "although too many times we had him and should have got him to the ground and failed to do so.

"There are two ways to look at that and you can choose either."

Why not both?

I saw the 6-5, 225-pound Young play a few times this year, and he was nothing like this. But he's a sophomore, and players have been known to improve. I don't know if he's ever going to be a great thrower, but does it matter? This is a competitor.

"Our main thing was to try and contain him," said Michigan linebacker/end LaMarr Woodley, the defensive MVP, knowing full well his side didn't come close. "I'm real tired right now."